Enjoying Santa Cruz Island
09 July 2011 | Santa Cruz Island
Sally
How quickly we forget! I'm not exactly sure I'm setting this blog entry up correctly to be sent through our SSB radio, so will make this one short. If this gets to the right place to be displayed, somebody e-mail us at our sailmail address so we know! We had to replace our hard drive on the computer a few months ago, and with the old one went all of our old faithful settings, passwords, prompts, etc... I guess when we are told to make sure we have a backup, we should listen!
We had a very nice sail on the 4th of July from the Channel Islands Marina in Ventura (near Oxnard) to Santa Cruz Island. Our first couple of nights were spent in a little anchorage called Scorpion's. If was very pretty and has a really nice visitor center set up with a lot of the local history explained and on display. The Chumash Indians lived here until they were all loaded up and taken to the mainland by "anglos." The island then became a big sheep ranch. Unfortunately, the sheep pretty well wiped out the native vegetation, and the pigs that were brought in for food became feral and further took their toll on the land. Between the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy, lots of work is being done to get the island back to its natural state. All of the sheep and pigs have been eradicated, and they are now trying to get rid of non-native plants. It's amazing all of this "ocean front property" is being left undeveloped - a good thing, but still amazing! All of this conservation means we are very limited on where we can legally go ashore. Scorpion's is one of the few places, although Penny is not allowed. No dogs!